Andijon events threatened all Central Asia - Uzbek police colonel

UzReport May 12 Last year's events in Andijon could have destabilized the entire Central Asia, Col Abdumutal Zakurlayev, a senior investigator at the Uzbek Interior Ministry, told Interfax on Thursday [11 May]. "An analysis of the May events in Andijon shows that it was an organized and thoroughly planned action, with intermediate and final goals. The achievement of those goals would have destabilized the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan and the region at large," he said. "Obviously, last May's events in Uzbekistan resulted from the collusion of religious and extremist organizations, which wanted to seize power with the assistance of external forces," he said. "The destructive forces planned to repeat the coloured revolutions of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. They wanted to create unrest but minimize the use of arms," he said. More than 100 people have been convicted on charges of murder, power seizure, terrorism, arson, illegal possession of weapons and other crimes, following the Andijon events, the investigator said.